Vicar Christopher Gillespie
Immanuel Lutheran Church of Frankentrost
Saginaw, Michigan
Trinity 12 (August 26th, 2007)
Mark 7:31-37

Trinity 12 - 2007 audio

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The text for our meditation this Sunday is healing miracle of Jesus.

“And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.”

Let us pray: Dear Father in heaven, you graciously sent your Son to this earth to restore your creation. By your mercy, the deaf are given hearing and the mute are given speech. May we always remember your healing touch given to us so that we may faithfully hear your Word and confess it with our tongues. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Imagine never hearing the sound of the air blowing through trees, water lapping on the shore, or the sweet melody of music. Imagine never hearing the voice of your newborn child and later when he is grown saying “I love you.”

The deaf-mute man can see all. He is living though in torture where he can see but can never know the sounds of the world. Hearing is a gift endowed by God upon his creation. This man will never know the gift. His flesh is corrupted, ravaged by the fate of fallen man. Many suffer this condition from birth, some later in life, and others in old age when the senses fail.

This man suffers further torment. He cannot hear but he also cannot speak. He cannot communicate apart from gestures, writing, and other motions. His expression is limited; his communication with the world flawed.

You might say this condition is undeserved. No one should suffer this way, both deaf and mute!

His tongue is held under the curse of original sin. The devil’s snare laid in Eden trapped all men; dooming them to a perverted form of God’s own image. Sin has plagued us ever since; a curse upon fathers and to their sons, carried from generation to generation.

All manner of illness falls upon us. Cancer. Pneumonia. Influenza. Autism. AIDS. Disability from birth, accident, and age ruins lives. Some lose their sight, others their hearing, yet others their voice. Some suffer paralysis, the use of their legs or lose a limb. The flesh will fail and decay.

In my first month here at Immanuel Frankentrost, I have seen the suffering of the flesh, experienced not in the figurative sense of the seminary classroom, or the hypothetical of the pastor’s study, but in the reality of the hospital room, the nursing home, and hospice care in the home.

While I have experienced and witnessed suffering and pain before, the intensity of this experience as a vicar is hard to anticipate. By what I have seen and heard, the condemnation of sin upon the body is disastrous.

Surely God would not allow this torment to be experienced by Christians? Surely suffering would be taken away from faithful members of this congregation? Even with this tempting thought, not a soul among my visits have blamed God for their woes. Instead they laid their burdens upon Jesus, asking for his forgiveness, pleading for mercy, and receiving this grace through the gift of His body and blood.

These men and women can claim no confidence in themselves. Like Paul they confess “not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God… such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.”

The Father knows that to perfect His creation this side of heaven would result in disaster. Would sinful man who suffered no illness place his confidence in God? Or would he trust in his own ability? God allows us to suffer calamity, never more than we can handle. In all this suffering, we confess with Job “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”

Neither Job nor the members I visited charged the Lord with wrongdoing. Instead they wait on the Lord; trusting in the Lord’s providence. The deaf-mute man has no such luck. His ears are stopped from hearing the Christ. He has not confessed because he cannot speak and has not heard.

Some people in region of the Decapolis trusted that the Lord would heal their friend, the deaf-mute man. They have heard about this man Jesus. News of his miracles have travelled to their ears. They trust that He can cure their friend. They have not seen but believe through hearing of His Word.

Here confidence in man’s own ability is set aside and trust is placed in hand of the Son of God. The people surrounding the deaf-mute man know they cannot cure his weakness with therapy, hearing devices, or other band-aids. While these gifts of God help to treat his symptoms, they never restore him to God’s intention. Instead for healing and restoration he is brought to Christ.

Christ healed the deaf-mute man. Christ comes to declare victory over the torment of the flesh. He comes to you when you are mute to speak and deaf to hear. He comes bringing healing and restoration now in soul and for the body in eternity, when all creation is born again.

Infants who are deaf to the Word of Scripture hear it in the Divine Service. The Holy Spirit opens their ears to hear and believe; calling them to the waters. These children mute to confessing the faith are brought to the waters of Baptism by others, entrusting them to the promise of God. There they are reborn as children of God. They are given ears to hear and tongues to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

The Gospel comes to them not as intellectual knowledge or through spoken consent. These infants are brought by parents who know that they cannot sanctify the children by their own work. They cannot cut off the evil that is born in their hearts. They cannot cure the darkness in the child’s eyes. Rather the poor in spirit, the meek, the humble shall receive the fresh joy of the Lord, the work of His hands. The Lord cures the soul and has mercy on the flesh.

These ears unstopped by Christ in his waters of rebirth are given the eyes of faith. They trust not in what we see or feel but in the Word of promise, the Gospel of Christ. Blessed is he who has not seen and yet believes. These ears trust because they have heard the promise of life and salvation.

By the Spirit’s aid, we confess that baptism is no ordinary water. But connected with God’s Word, these waters are a saving flood. Holy Communion is not ordinary bread and wine but true body and blood. Our ears hear and our hearts trust even though our eyes cannot see.

Like the deaf-mute man, our ears are opened to faith. Christ’s Spirit calls, gathers and enlightens His Church. He loosens our tongue to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Where there is no faith and no promise, there is no assurance of the work of the Holy Spirit. Christ instituted the Church around his means of grace not to limit his work but to give us confidence of the presence of the Father’s grace, the Son’s salvation, and Spirit’s voice.

There is no assurance of truth outside the institution of the Church. Without Christ’s Church and Her office of the Holy Ministry, man is left with ears deaf to the truth of Christ’s death and resurrection. This truth remains buried in mystery. Interpreters who abandon the institution of Word and Sacraments further shroud Christ’s death and resurrection with worldly ideas of its meaning.

We don’t have to look further than the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America to see the effects of seeking meaning outside the voice of the Holy Spirit. Their hymnal speaks of Mother God and other “alternate” names for God. They ignore God’s ordering of creation by placing women in headship roles over men. Two weeks ago their convention voted to allow practicing homosexuals to remain as pastors in their church.

Such actions are a denial of the Spirit’s witness in His Word. This church has denied the Trinity, accepted the heresy of the Gnostics long ago denied in the confession of the Nicene Creed. This church has ignored the creation of God and instead have formed their own ideas of what was God’s intent when he made man and woman. This church, by their own reckoning calls the open unrepentant sin of homosexuality not sin at all but part of God’s vision of love, all in the name of tolerance. Here, where the deaf ears were opened to faith and trust, men have chosen to clog them once again with the world’s ideas.

Faith built on these aimless wanderings of sinful man is not faith at all. It is man willfully ignoring the truth given, all in a desperate hope to remake God in our own image. We don’t want a God that allows us to suffer. We don’t want a God who leaves us with pain, agony, and misery in our flesh. We don’t want a God who lets sin ravage our bodies as they grow old.

Yet in the midst of this ministry of death where no one can leave blameless, He has healed our ears to hear His Word. Within this Word we hear that God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, in His own image, in the likeness of man. How great is the glory of this ministry of reconciliation! His image is not corrupted flesh we see and experience but the restored humanity he intends.

This is a humanity that is humble, kind, patient; trusting in the will of the Father. He says” O My Father, not as I will but as You will.” We see in Christ true suffering, pain, agony, and misery for our sake on the cross. In Christ we see the grace of God. We see the mercy extended to man. The burden of the Law and the condemnation where we sin against this Law is removed from us and placed upon Christ. Death which is deserved is destroyed and instead we are given the promise of life eternal.

We have heard and so we know the purpose and content of Scripture. We require no guesswork about its meaning. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified. This is the confession of the ears opened to faith.

While our flesh suffers here, we confess that our Father has had mercy upon us by sending his Son to grant us eternal life. We wait for the resurrection of the dead, when he will restore all flesh in eternity.

Like those who brought the deaf-mute man to Jesus, our loosened tongues confess “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

We rise for prayer: O Lord, make haste to help me! You are my help and deliverer. Let me not be ashamed but praise your name and confess the mighty deeds you have done. May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in You! In Jesus Christ the crucified we pray. Amen.